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You like your front braces don't you, I still have the ones you fitted to my Nova back in '83, although only on the bottom tubes and not as sturdy looking as those Thai ones. I will be watching out for that steering rack install with great interest, as I suspect at some point in the future I may swap out my Triumph Dolomite one.

Keep the updates and photos coming, as now Flatlands have started you ought to be getting almost daily updates and photos based on my experience

Chassis strength and torsional rigidity of the VW pan are a bit of a hobby-horse of mine ;-)
so I will be doing what I can to beef things up on the build; the brace is the first part of it.

I really am pleased to have found a bolt-on Rack & Pinion install for the car (although it ain't bolted on just yet so I'll reserve judgement - but it looks promising). Interestingly I'm told that a steering damper isn't required with the conversion.

Well the brace finally arrived, and yes it fits to the outer end of the beam and back to the Naps head (see pic) this is the only one I could find that bolts to both top and bottom beams. It came from Thailand but I can't complain about the fit and quality. It has a galvanised(?) coating which may be a bit lightweight for a UK winter so it will need overpainting with something suitable:

I'm more inclined to say it looks sheradised https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherardising
Its a good method of preserving metal items, but I have to agree with your plan to overcoat them, try to avoid damaging the zinc coating when you paint them though

Interestingly I'm told that a steering damper isn't required with the conversion.

I would tend to agree - the FWD rack allows the use of equal length track rods that are as long as possible, which will minimise the inherent bump-steer. If you can get a bit of negative camber that will also help by reducing the scrub radius on wheels with a large positive offset (typically needed to fill the Nova front arches). That will also reduce the kick-back through the wheel.

In fact, your front beam supplier may have already tuned out all of the bump-steer like Dirk has managed to do!

In fact, your front beam supplier may have already tuned out all of the bump-steer like Dirk has managed to do!

Lauren

I personal think bump-steer in a Nova is a bit of a misnomer due to the weight of the front end, unless you have managed to radically reduce the poundage of the front suspension springs. Whilst the measurements of mine done statically were very good and hand on heart I would say there would be very little bump-steer the suspension is still too stiff despite having cut several springs, to allow enough movement of the wheels relative to the chassis.

Chassis strength and torsional rigidity of the VW pan are a bit of a hobby-horse of mine ;-)
so I will be doing what I can to beef things up on the build; the brace is the first part of it.

I really am pleased to have found a bolt-on Rack & Pinion install for the car (although it ain't bolted on just yet so I'll reserve judgement - but it looks promising). Interestingly I'm told that a steering damper isn't required with the conversion.

Thanks to all for the comments, I will update asap.

Are you also looking at a similar sort of brace in the opposite direction to support the long overhanging nose of the bodywork?

Steve
If the body is not on, you will have to bring the chassis to stones so that everyone can see all the bits you are doing. Everything you are adding sounds great !

Hi Mark, Let's see where things are early next year, those shiny bits look good on a spec-sheet, it will be interesting to see what happens when (eventually) it is road worthy.

You sometimes hear rumours of top-spec Nova chassis being put together on the QT, it would be nice to see some of those builds on display at Stoneleigh, mentioning no names of course ;-)
... and such a display would be incomplete without at least one Pie Valley chassis.

One of the reasons I bought my (pile of bits) car was for the Subaru 5-speed gearbox.
The box has the Subarugears reverse-drive kit recently installed, but I did have some doubts about it - for one thing it looked like it had been pulled out of a lake - so took it to Mike Fletcher Engineering in Banbury be checked out/refurbed. I got Mike's name from the Subarugears guys in OZ.

When you purchase the Subaru reverse-drive kit, you choose the final drive (ratio) required for your build (the FD is part of the kit) you have a choice of 4 FDs, and that decision is made based on the gear ratios of the 'box itself, the tyre size (circumference) and the engine you plan on using.
There is a calculator on the Subarugears website which helps get your head around all this.

Anyway, I currently have a 3.9:1 FD (ratio) which is the most long-legged (high geared); To cut a long story short, I have ordered a new ring + pinion - I'm switching to a 4.444 FD, this will give me stronger acceleration, but with a high 5th gear (0.73:1) cruising speed of: 70mph @3100 rpm.

I have now sold the 3.0L EJ30 Engine I got with the car; I plan on using a VW 2.0L Type 4 engine. That has raised some eyebrows among some esteemed members of this community, but I'm a big fan of the Type 4 and I'm also following the KISS principle here.

If anyone has a 2.0 T4 lump in any condition kicking around, please PM me.

The pic below shows the Gearbox at Mike's workshop, he'd removed the nose cone and split the case in about 25 seconds. The internals were clean and looked in decent nick, but I'm getting the case bead-blasted, plus the new FD fitted, new seals, a breather added and the nose cone ground down to help with clearance issues:

Nice to know someone else is a type 4 fan!
Would the KISS principle extend to carbs rather than injection? - it took me for ever to find replacement sensors and bits and bobs (including loosing the original controller somehow...). I now have more controllers and sensors than I can shake a fist at, had I known then carbs would seem the way to go to keep it simple!? (at least I've got some spares for my engine now! `¬)

It would be interesting to know how many people are running type 4s?

Just to clarify, are we talking 411 / 412 / 914 here 68-74, or T4 van 90 - 03... I always get confused when T4 is mentioned! `¬)